Dendroica comprises 24 species of the warblers found within our limits. Most of them glean for their food in the terminal twigs cf trees much as does the parula and like it their songs are simple feeble trills. They come in troops when the forest trees are bursting into leaf in May and most of them pass to the British provinces or at least to the northern woods and high mountain ridges to breed, but a few, like the yellow warbler, remain through the summer. With few exceptions they never nest on the ground. The males in breeding plumage are handsomely and variously colored, but nearly always have much white on the tail quills, the female, young and male autumn plumage is generally very different One of the best known but hardly a good representa tive example is the yellow or summer warbler (D. cestiva), one of the few species whidi has an extensive breeding range in the United States. It is abundant almost everywhere in North America and its warm glowing yellow color and the absence of white from the tail are diagnostic. It is less of a woodland bird than many of the others and frequents orchards, parks and roadside thickets, building a pretty nest, compactly felted of soft vegetable fibres, bits of wool, paper, etc., securely wedged in the upright fork of a bush or low tree. More than one brood of four or five young is some times raised and these birds often outwit the cowbird which drops an egg in their nests by covering the intruder with a false floor and hatching their own brood above it. The spring song of the yellow warbler is very sprightly. Other species which breed over considerable areas •in the United States are the cerulean warbler (D. ccerulea), chestnut-sided warbler (D. pennsylvanica), yellow-throated warbler (D. dominica), pine warbler (D. vigorsii), and prairie warbler (D. discolor) in the East and the black-throated gray warbler (D. nigrescens), Townsend's warbler (D. townsendi), hermit warbler (D. accidentalis) and golden-cheelced warbler (D. chrysoparia) in the West. Well known migrant species, which breed in Canada and more or less in our northern border States and along the high mountain ridge south ward even to North Carolina and Georgia, are the Cape May warbler (D. tigrina), black throated blue warbler (D. carislescens), yel low-rumped or tnyrtle warbler (D. coronata), which lingers into the winter even in the lati tude of Philadelphia, magnolia warbler (D. maculosa), bay-breasted warbler (D. cat tanea), the beautiful black and orange Black burn's warbler (D. blackburnia), black throated green warbler (D. virens) and the Eastern palm warbler (D. palmarsim hypochrysea).
Very distinct in appearance from all of the above are the members of the genus Seiurns, of ground-loving habits and thrush-like plu mage, brownish above and streaked or spotted below. We have three species. The golden crowned thrush or oven-bird (S. aurocapillus) slightly exceeds six inches in length, and both sexes are of a rather bright olive color above, with a golden crown-strealc bounded by black. It inhabits the greater part of North America and breeds from Virginia and Kansas north ward, building its over-arched nest of leaves and grasses on the ground and laying therein four to six white eggs thickly speckled with brown and lilac. The oven-bird is very com mon in the summer in the New England and Middle States, inhabiting low damp woods and living mostly on or near the ground, searching for its chiefly insect food among the fallen leaves. Besides its ordinary loud clear whistled song, it has an exquisitely sweet nuptial song seldom heard. The cornmon water-thnish or water-wagtail (S. noveboracensis) is slightly smaller and of a nearly uniform rich olive brown. above, pale yellow, streaked with brown below. Its breeding range is northerly in the eastern United States to Illinois and to the Arctic, and it winters in middle America. The water-thrush inhabits woodlands in the vicinity of streams and swamps and resembles the wag tails in its habit of wading and raising the tail to balance the body on its insecure footing.
The nest of leaves, grasses and fine roots is built on the ground in the shelter of a log and the crystalline white eggs profusely speckled with brown number four to six. A related spe cies of similar habits, the large-billed or Louisiana water-thrush (S. motacilla), is more southern in range but very similar in appear ance. Both are exq.uisite songsters.
Geothlypis contatns a group of ground-war blers with the feet stout and the wings generally very short and exceeded in length by the tail. A typical, very cornmon and wide-ranging spe cies is the Maryland yellowthroat (G. trtchas) which breeds from Georgia to Labrador. The male is a handsome bird, olive above, chiefly clear yellow below, the face with a broad rich black mask which the female lacks. It lives in thickets and shrubbery, especially where the ground is low and wet. The nest is skilfully concealed in tufts of herbage on the ground and is constructed of leaves, twigs, grass, rootlets, etc. The four to six eggs are white and rather sparingly spotted about the large end with brown. The song is a loud, clear, lively whistle sung with great energ.T. A related species is the Kentucky warbler (G. formosa), which dif fers in having in place of the black mask a black crown and a black bar running obliquely downward and backward from the ey.e and be tween them a yellow superciliary stripe. It is more southern than the yellowtluoat, but breeds throughout the eastern United States. Much less common than the yellowthroat its habits are essentially similar, but it is a bird more of the woodland borders and underbrush than of the swampy thickets. Other species are the mourning warbler (G. philadelphia), the Connecticut warbler (G. agilis) and several southern and western species closely similar to the Maryland yellowthroat.
Coming now to the Setophagince, we find five genera and 10 species recorded as North American, six of which are Mexican and scarcely or not at all cross the borders of the United States. The remaining four are gener ally common eastern birds. Typical of the sub family is the redstart (Setophaga ruticilla), not at all related to the redstart of Europe. The male is a handsome bird of lustrous black plumage, the belly. white, and the wing lining, a patch on the primaries and one on each side of the tail quills of rich orange which appears and disappears as the bird opens and closes these parts in its never-ceasing activity in the pursuit of insects among the outer foliage of trees and the surrounding air. As a catcher of flying. insects the redstart is very skilful; its song is lively and pleasing and its nest a neatly felted cup of soft vegetable fibres in an upright fork of a small tree. It is found throughout most of North America and breeds in the north ern half of the Unitcd States and in Canada. The Canadian fly-catching warbler (Sylvania canadensis) is bluish ash above, rich yellow below, with numerous small black streaks on the crown and more distinct ones on the throat, and a black band running backward from the eye. This handsome species is found from the base of the Rocky Mountains eastward and breeds from southern New England and New York to Newfoundl-and. It is abundant during the migrations and sperids much of its time making short flights to secure passing insects, from which it immediately returns to its un ending activity in the higher branches of the trees. The nest is on the ground and the eggs of the usual warbler type. Two related species are the hooded warbler (S. mitrata) and the black-capped warbler (S. pusilla), both chiefly y-ellow, the first with a black cap and throat and a .rich yellow face mask, the last smaller and with the black confined lo the crown. The hooded warbler is chiefly southerly and hardly reaches the northern limits of the United States, but breeds southward to the Gulf Coast, build ing its nest in low bushes. The black-cap, on the other hand, is even more northerly and has a wider western range than the Canadian warbler, but like it nests on the ground.